Endoscopic surgery has revolutionized a number of surgical procedures in specific areas. Joints, blood vessels, the abdomen and the chest all lend themselves well to this type of surgery.
Briefly, endoscopic surgery is performed with the surgeon observing his own actions on a video monitor. An external miniaturized video camera is attached by fiber optic tubes to a telescopic lens. A light source is combined and both are inserted into a patient through a small incision. In like manner, a surgeon operates with instruments held outside the patient and which extend into the operative field.
Endoscopic surgery performed in the abdomen is called laproscopic, and when performed in the chest is called thoracoscopic. These procedures often involve substantial amounts of bleeding. Unlike open surgery, there is little or no opportunity to employ a sponge to remove the blood. Accordingly, it has to be removed by a suction device. The instruments employed are generally elongate tubes attached to a source of vacuum which are inserted into a small incision.
Concurrently, it is often necessary to irrigate the operative field with sterile saline solution or the like. This means that one instrument must be removed from the patient and another inserted. This is not only traumatic to the patient but time consuming. It is to this problem that the present invention is directed.